


Lead Me Through the Dark

by jibber_jabber



Category: SK8 the Infinity (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crushes, First Kiss, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, M/M, Making Out, Making Up, Non-Linear Narrative, Pining, Reconciliation, because we need it let's be honest, rewrite of episode 9
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 20:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30111414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jibber_jabber/pseuds/jibber_jabber
Summary: Skating doesn't mean much to Langa unless he's got Reki by his side. Now his favorite board is broken, and there's only one person who can fix it.
Relationships: Hasegawa Langa/Kyan Reki
Kudos: 135





	Lead Me Through the Dark

I.

Langa grinds his board into the dirt as he crosses the finish line, just a shade ahead of Joe. Somehow, he's done it. He's won. The crowd cheers for him, a swelling sound that thunders in Langa’s ears. Their shouts echo through the canyons surrounding the course, and S comes alive. His heart beats faster than ever, and he clutches a hand to his chest, smiling to himself as he remembers Reki standing on the sidelines. He’d come back to watch him.

But his board splits in half as he skids to a stop, and Langa’s stomach drops. He sinks to his knees, shaking his head as he cradles the splintered skateboard in his hands. “No, no,” he mutters. It's broken, and there's only one person who can fix it.

“Probably better to get a new board,” Joe comments, grimacing over Langa’s shoulder. “It’ll be faster, anyway.”

Langa shakes his head again. “No, I can’t do that,” he says. “It has to be this one.”

Something in Joe’s face softens. “Reki made that board, didn’t he?”

Langa nods.

“Then have him fix it.”

He’s right. Langa pushes himself off the ground, dusting off his jeans, and begins to run.

He has to find Reki.

* * *

II. 

Afternoons at DOPE SKETCH are the slowest, but they’re also the best. When there’s no customers, Oka doesn’t seem to mind that Reki and Langa spend the entire time goofing off. Usually, Reki’s showing Langa some board he’s working on, their designs always colorful and bright (like Reki himself, Langa thinks). Dazedly, Langa nods as he goes through his building process, not letting on that he hasn’t got a single idea as to what Reki’s going on about most of the time.

Other days, they practice moves on their fingerboards. Langa will demonstrate some outrageous move that Reki immediately objects to, saying, “There’s no way in hell that would ever fucking work, man.” That is, until Langa inevitably nails it about a week later.

“Reki,” Langa says one Saturday, after they’d actually had a customer post-lunch. “Someone’s brought this in for repairs.”

Reki straightens from where he’s crouched on the floor, searching for a missing wheel. “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

He hands the board to Reki. It’s an old thing, the wood on the bottom splintering and the paint chipped in all sorts of places. One of the wheels is busted, stuck at an awkward angle. It seems like a hopeless case from his perspective, but he’s seen Reki do a lot of rad things with his hands.

Not that Langa’s been paying any attention to his _hands_. Not in that way.

Langa sits beside him at his workstation in the backroom, watching Reki prepare the board to be fixed. It’s really amazing how he works. There’s so many different parts to the skateboard, and Reki’s tried to explain them to him about a million times, but it never quite sticks in his mind. When he gets on his board, he just sort of feels his way through it. Seems to work out okay most of the time.

“Can you hand me that?” Reki says, pointing to the side, where a red screwdriver sits at the edge of the workbench.

Langa hands it to him, and their fingers brush, just for a moment. He hopes Reki doesn’t notice the faint blush forming across his face and down his neck.

* * *

III.

Langa has always been a bit single-minded, sometimes to a fault. As a kid, his mom once got mad at him for staying out well after dark practicing a snowboarding trick that his dad said took most people years to learn. All he’d known was that he wanted to learn it now. He came back inside covered in bruises, nose and fingers practically purple, and got sent straight to his room. Even his dad hadn’t defended him from that one.

It's with this same single-mindedness that he searches for Reki. He's dimly aware that another race has gone off, a showdown with Cherry versus ADAM. This one is sure to be a crowd favorite, a face-off between two legends of the underground skating world. From what he’s observed of Cherry, it seems like this might be more than just a competition between equals—it’s more personal than that. He’s never asked about it, though. Never seemed like any of his business.

His vision tunnels before him as he walks along the sidelines, weaving between spectators. Some try to stop him and congratulate him on his race, but he ignores them. Ignores the taps on his shoulder and the confused glances. The wood is splitting apart even more in his hands, and he clutches the board tighter to his chest.

Would Reki even agree to fix it for him? They hadn’t spoken in days. Langa pushes the thought out of his mind. Reki came back for him; it has to mean something. He’ll say yes.

* * *

IV. 

Their favorite route is the one that passes through the trail in the woods. It’s quiet, which Langa likes, and it reminds him of snowboarding. He loves skating on the city streets, but there’s something nice about the quiet of nature. Just him, Reki, and the fresh air and trees.

He breathes in the morning. They’ve been awake since dawn to try and catch the sunrise before school. Well, it’s really more that Langa wants to see the sunrise, because Reki would rather have been asleep. He’d arrived almost fifteen minutes after they’d agreed to meet, yawning and running his fingers through bedhead hair.

Langa had flicked him on the forehead. “Wake up, dumbass.”

Reki punched him lightly in response and hopped on his board.

And off they went.

A breeze whistles by as they skate on a hill above the skyline. The woods are at the top of one of the highest points in the area; it’s a haul to get their skateboards there, but worth it for the view. The sun peeks out from behind the skyscrapers, casting golden rays through the treetops and out over the waking city. It’s beautiful. Even Reki, despite his hatred for mornings, seems appreciative, making a small _oooh_ sound when they pass an opening in the trees that reveals the sunrise in all its glory. Langa’s chest feels warm as he studies his friend, who is lost in the sights.

Reki catches him staring. Langa blushes. 

“What? Do I have something on my face?” Reki asks, his brows furrowed.

Langa nods, deadly serious as he responds, “Yes.”

Reki splutters, clutching at his face in search of the spot.

Langa laughs quietly to himself and receives a gentle shove when Reki figures out what’s going on. It knocks him off his skateboard—not badly, just enough for him to stumble off—but he figures he deserves it for that one. 

Recently, he’s been having more-than-friendly thoughts about Reki, and he doesn’t know what to do about them just yet. Life in Japan is still a little bit strange and foreign, like a t-shirt that doesn’t quite fit, but Reki makes it feel a bit more like home.

He settles for enjoying the moment.

He wakes up the next morning from a dream about Reki, looks down under the blankets, and sighs. It’s all really uncomfortable. He needs to do something about this soon, but for now, he checks the clock and hops out of bed for a quick shower before school.

* * *

V.

Bringing up stuff with his mom is always hard. Since his dad died, Langa doesn’t want to bother her more than he has to. But he’s tired of Reki avoiding him and tired of not knowing what to do about it, and so, over a bowl of ramen on a Thursday night, he gathers his courage and tells his mom that he messed everything up by breaking his promise.

What that promise is he knows he can’t tell her, but she plays along anyway. “You like this person, right?”

Reki’s face appears in his mind, from a memory. He’s all wide-eyed and excited and radiant, telling Langa about some new skateboarding video he’d watched the night before. They’re sitting in the back of the classroom, and they push their desks together so that Reki can tuck his phone out of sight underneath and they can watch it during the lesson. Their knees touch, and it’s warm.

Yeah, Langa likes him.

He stutters at first, face flushing. A bead of sweat forms on his temple, and he swallows, unable to look at his mom. “Uh,” he says. “Yeah.”

She brightens. “Then you just have to tell her how you feel!”

_Her_? Oh.

Langa pauses a moment before responding. “…Right.”

* * *

VI.

He finds Reki at the entrance to S, just about to hand over his membership pin. Langa breaks into a sprint. “Reki, wait!”

Reki stops, tightening a fist around the badge. He stares at Langa, and his warm, bright eyes are wide. “Langa?”

“Don’t leave.”

There’s a pause. Reki glances at the bouncer, who looks back at him and shrugs. After another moment, Reki’s put his pin back in his pocket and stepped away from the entrance. They walk a few feet away, further into S, where a few skaters are mingling with one another and discussing that night’s races.

“What do you want?” Reki says dully. He’s nothing like his usual sunny self, and Langa’s heart wrenches. Did he do this to him?

“Reki, I—” He cuts himself off and holds the broken board out helplessly.

Reki stares.

Two spectators in black hoodies, holding brand new boards, slouch around the track and start talking quietly with one another. They don’t appear to have noticed Reki or Langa.

“Man, that race with Snow and Joe was insane! So fucking close,” the one on the left says. “I can’t believe the rookie pulled it off.”

“He’s incredible,” the other agrees, nodding. “Guess who’s back, though?”

“Who?”

“You remember the guy that always hangs around Snow?”

“You mean the redhead?”

“Yeah, he came out of fuckin’ nowhere and just starts shouting at Snow.”

“That’s so weird, dude.”

Langa frowns as he realizes what he’s hearing and glances over at Reki, who has his shoulders hiked up to his ears and his hands shoved firmly in his pockets. So this is why Reki has been avoiding him. He doesn’t feel like he belongs at S, or with him.

Suddenly, painfully, Langa gets it. But that doesn't mean he understands. When he looks at Reki, he sees the sun.

He closes the distance between himself and Reki, dropping the broken skateboard by his feet. It rolls forward ever so slightly. He doesn’t pay attention to that. All he’s focused on right now is Reki and the way his eyes watch him questioningly. He’s confused.

“Langa?”

Langa answers by kissing him.

He grabs the sides of Reki’s face and pulls him in, pressing their lips together roughly. Langa’s never kissed anyone before, not even back in Canada, and it feels strange but exhilarating. Neither of them moves for a little, until Reki places tentative hands on Langa’s waist, and Langa wraps his arms around his back, and they fall into a sweet rhythm. Reki curls his fingers around his body, bringing him in closer, while Langa moves his hands up to thread through his thick red hair. It’s soft beneath his fingertips, and even though he’s generally a quiet person, Langa sighs.

Even though there’s still tons of people around, flitting in and out of S and moving along the track, Langa hardly notices them. Their noise is but a din, their stares and whispers nothing to him. He and Reki move together until Langa has him backed against the stone cliff that separates S from the outside world. Reki bites his lower lip, gently, and Langa feels like he’s floating away.

When they pull apart, everything is still and quiet around them, and Langa can hear his heartbeat again. He presses a hand to his chest and smiles at Reki. Reki smiles back.

* * *

VII.

Reki performs a miracle that night at the racetrack. Kneeling on the side of the course, just shy of where the skaters would be coming by any minute, he takes the broken board and gets to work. He’s packed supplies in the small bag strapped to his back, as if he knew that he might have to do something like this. Even after everything, he’s apparently still made room in his life for skating. Langa’s stomach flutters as he watches him take the board in his hands and examine it with a careful gaze.

Reki looks up at Langa from underneath his lashes. “Jesus, you really did a number on this one, Langa.” There’s a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Lucky for you, I happen to be a mechanical genius. Watch this!”

Langa does, grinning as Reki begins to repair the board, his fingers moving expertly. A small crowd forms around them, curious about the rookie’s redheaded friend, the one that seems to have taken a hopeless case of a skateboard and turned it around. Reki finishes about a half hour later, presenting the repaired board with a bow. Langa accepts it with a bow of his own.

“Thank you, Reki.”

When he straightens, he sees Reki looking sadly back at him.

“You’re going to race against him, aren’t you?”

Langa glances up at where the current race is projected on the big screen, eager bystanders gathered around to watch the result. There’s no question that ADAM is quite possibly the best skater he would ever go up against in his life, and the competition, the thrill… would be unreal. But is it worth what’s in front of him right now?

He drops the skateboard on the ground, stops it with his foot. Then he gets on, steadying himself and looking right at Reki.

“No,” he says, finally. “I just want to go with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you've made it this far, thanks so much for reading! <3 I've been having the best time thinkin' about these skater bois, even if we're all in pain waiting for them to get their shit together right now


End file.
